Production and Decay Processes Involving Vector Mesons

Citation

Wagner, William Gerard (1962) Production and Decay Processes Involving Vector Mesons. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/7K5F-HT02. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:08182011-082426137

Abstract

Many resonances in the scattering of fundamental particles have been recently discovered, which may be interpreted in terms of unstable particles. One of these may be a vector meson coupled to the hypercharge current, whose decay rates are calculated. Predictions are given for the total decay rate, and branching ratios, in terms of γ^2_π/4π, the strength of the hypercharge coupling. Another resonance may be correlated with the missing member, x, of an octet of pseudoscalar mesons in the “Eightfold Way” of Gell-Mann; a reasonable estimate of the branching ratio Γ(x → 2γ)/ Γ(x → π^- + π^+ + γ) is obtained. A resonance in the K- π system may be Gell-Mann’s M-mesons; the role of M in the associated production of Λ’s by pions and in Λ production by K’s is examined. The existence of a new class of asymptotic cross section equalities, which are generalizations of the Pomeranchuk relations, is demonstrated. The pion plus leptons decays of the kaon are considered, and it is shown that they cannot be determined by an intermediate M-meson. The fraction of p’s, the vector mesons that appear as resonance in the two-pion system, that decay into four pions is estimated to be less than 1%.

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